Newly unsealed: Olney 'House of Horrors' plea deal explained

Disturbing new details about one of the men at the center of the House of Horrors investigation in Alney. Police believe the late Raymond Horsch and his son Eugene Horsch are behind at least seven missing persons cases. Newly unsealed court documents revealed back in 2012. Raymond Horsch was facing 20 years in jail, but cut a deal with federal prosecutors in exchange for providing information about crimes like child prostitution and drug trafficking. Our Jennifer Joyce has been sifting through these documents tonight. So Jennifer, break it down for us. Yeah, good evening, John. Well, these documents provide eye-opening new details about federal prosecutors' involvement with Raymond Horsch from more than a decade ago. And tonight, we spoke with a family member of one of Horsch's victims deeply troubled by this new information. It's troubling. It really is. It's something that's making me angry, sad at the same time. Jonathan Halloran-Corin says he is sick reading the newly unsealed federal documents detailing the plea agreement between Raymond Horsch and federal prosecutors. Halloran-Corin is a cousin of Nicole Fusaro, a woman who investigators say is seen on video evidence being strangled by Raymond Horsch. To know that he could have been in jail. He could have been serving his time, and both my cousin as well as the other girls that we know so far, and we don't know how many other girls that may be involved in this, could still be alive. The court documents explain that Horsch was facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison for growing marijuana in his home with intent to distribute possession of two sawed-off firearms to be used in his drug operation and possession of firearms as a convicted felon. After the agreement, he served four and a half years. That's not uncommon in the federal system. That happens a lot, but looking back on it, it probably wasn't a great result here. Defense attorney and former federal prosecutor Rocco Ciparone says that while he thinks a plea deal is warranted, he is surprised by the extent of the lesser sentence. According to the documents, Horsch came forward to prosecutors with information about serious crimes, including child prostitution, marijuana, cocaine trafficking, and fraud. While the prosecutors deemed his information, quote, truthful and reliable, it, quote, was not sufficient to. To permit the prosecution of others. Now to go from 240 months to 50 some months is really a pretty strong variance of departure. And it struck me that that was probably bigger than I would see in a case where. Prosecutable cases were not developed out of his information. Federal investigators also made mention of Horsch's intelligence, writing, quote, the defendant possesses skills and intelligence far beyond those of most defendants who turn to crime. The prosecutors argued for the plea agreement, pointing to the fact that, quote, The defendant's crimes did not have specific victims and there is no information known to the government that the defendant had criminal involvement in the serious crimes against minors about which he had some knowledge. Hindsight's always 20-20, it's a little difficult and probably unfair to second guess the prosecutors who were involved in that case. And that attorney went on to say that that's how federal cases work, building other cases by flipping defendants. Raymond Horsch died last year. Don. All right, Jennifer, still a lot more to come on this. Thank you.